The Sinner (Notorious 1)

“Juliette? What are you doing here?”

“Trying to prevent you from doing something stupid, but I think I’m too late.” she said, striding into the kitchen looking way too police chiefy for such an early-morning visit.

Something cold and awful slid into my joy.

I resisted it as hard as I could, threw up all kinds of walls and doors and locks. Please, I thought, trying to hug the memory of the night to myself. Just let me have this.

“Look at you,” Juliette said, flinging a hand out at me. “Singing Van Morrison, looking like a cat that’s found the cream and…Christ, that’s sugar pie, isn’t it?”

I dropped the dish on the counter. “What’s your point?” I asked, tugging the neckline of my robe higher like she could see the kiss marks and beard burn on my skin.

“You slept with him, didn’t you?”

“No, I did not.” I blinked, though somehow what had happened last night felt more intimate than sex. “And even if I did, I’m a grown woman, Juliette. I appreciate your concern, but I don’t need it. It’s okay.” I smiled, trying hard to hold on to my morning-after glow. It had been eight years since I felt this way, actually, scratch that.

I have never felt the way he made me feel.

“Savannah, I hate to tell you this, but I got an e-mail from the FBI office in Baton Rouge, and that man—the man you clearly did something with, the man living here—is lying to you.”

An icy shower of dread ran over me and the joy couldn’t hold out.

“What are you saying?” I asked, as the cold seeped past my muscles and into my bones.

“Whoever that man is, he isn’t Matt Howe. There is no Matt Howe.”

8

SAVANNAH

“What?” I asked, pushing myself onto my feet, stumbling because everything was suddenly numb. Cold.

Juliette reached out to grab my elbow but I jerked away. I didn’t want to be touched. Not now.

“What are you saying?”

“There are no Matt Howes who are his age and look like him who live in St. Louis. No birth certificates. No driver’s licenses. No school records, hospital records. Nothing. That man is not Matt Howe.”

But he was. He’d put his fingers in my mouth and his lips on my body. I’d laughed with him. I put my head in my hands, reaching deep for a little strength. I’d told him my secrets.

“You’re sure?” I asked.

“As sure as the FBI can be, and that’s pretty damn sure.”

Right. Okay. I licked my lips, struggling to figure out what to do right now. Offer Juliette coffee? Pretend like nothing happened? Pretend like my stomach hadn’t been ripped right out of me?

Such. An. Idiot.

“You okay?” Juliette asked, more friend now than police chief. I shook my head, not wanting pity or friendship or, frankly, anyone to witness this moment. “Did he hurt you?”

“Hurt me?” I laughed. No. Yes? I couldn’t say. “I told you, we didn’t sleep together.”

“Still, you’re freaking me out a little,” Juliette said, ducking her face to try and see into my eyes.

“Well, join the club.” I took a deep breath. “Maybe this isn’t a big deal,” I said, hopefully, but Juliette’s face was pitying. “Why does it have to be a big deal?”

“Men don’t lie for no reason. He gave you a false name.” She shrugged. “He’s hiding something.”

Which, of course, had been my suspicion from the very beginning. Then the bastard went and put on glasses and played the piano and put his hands on my weak and willing flesh and I forgot all those suspicions.

Finally, anger swept down like a flash flood and flushed away my numbness, the last lingering traces of my joy. A righteous rage that I would be taken for a fool—again—put steel in my legs and back and I stood straight, flinging my hair over my shoulder.

“What are you going to do?” Juliette asked, leaning against the counter. “You want me to take him to the station? Hold him for a few days?”

“I don’t need you breaking the law for me,” I said.

“All right. So? What are you going to do?”

Everything had all been a lie.

He’d slept in my house. In the same house as my daughter.

Good God. I’d caught him in the hallway a few nights ago. He’d said he was checking out a sound and I’d convinced myself not to be suspicious.

“I’m going to make him very sorry he came to my door.”

“Atta girl,” Juliette said as she picked up her ringing phone. “I’ll wait around to see if we need to bury a body.”

It was dark on the porch, the overgrown vines outside acting like shades against the sun. The white sheets on the bed glowed in the half-light, drawing my eye despite my intention not to look at the liar. His back rose like a mountain from the snowy sheets, beautiful, all that caramel skin over muscle and bone. His feet were bare and sticking out over the edge of the bed and it made him seem oddly vulnerable.